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I went up to my apartment, threw together the cupcakes, and while they cooked, I found myself not reaching for my cowboy book but my laptop.

Because suddenly my hero had another layer.

It seemed that ‘Madison’ was just going to have to keep calling in.

For the ratings.

For the engagement.

But above all else, for the inspiration.

I just had no idea how out of control it was about to spiral.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

[ “PROTECTION SPELLS DON’T work on bad decisions.”

— Hex Appeal - Episode 17]

Maggie

“Maggie, a word,” Mr. Lane called as soon as I walked through the doors of the station.

Uh-oh.

It was never a good thing when the boss came down into the trenches with the rest of us. Someone was getting fired. Hopefully not me.

“Mr. Lane. Of course, we can go to my office. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

Tess and Margo started out of their sound booth, saw Mr. Lane, and backed up with round eyes.

“I can’t imagine it could be trusted here,” he said, looking at the note on the vending machine.

I’d managed to get the mirror to stop heckling people. That vending machine, though, was proving especially difficult. I’d had three different witches in to try to triage it and come up with a plan to make it stop spitting out increasingly alarming fortunes. Just this morning, a guest had gotten one that said: He is watching. She went a shade of gray I’d never seen before and bolted out of the station.

“This is your office?” Mr. Lane asked as we moved into the small, windowless space.

“Yes.” And he was the one who’d shown it to me when I’d been hired, making sure to tell me that he didn’t want any of that ‘making my office a second home nonsense.’ It was why I had sad beige walls, a simple desk, and a headache-inducing bright overhead light.

“It wouldn’t kill you to spruce the place up.”

Okay then.

This was a lot for five minutes in the door. Especially without any caffeine in my system. Our machine at home had been threatening us with a descale warning for almost two weeks. It finally decided not to work anymore until we cleaned it.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, forcing a smile. “Is something wrong?”

“You haven’t heard yet then?”

My anxiety shot off in a thousand different directions, trying to figure out what little flames I’d been keeping an eye on could have become a whole wildfire while I’d been away.

But it was impossible to figure it out.

At any point in time, running this station was like juggling a dozen balls. The trick was knowing which ones were too fragile to drop, and which ones would rebound. But to make it extra spicy, they switched roles by the day, hour, minute.

“I just got in,” I said. I glanced at the pile of notes on my desk, trying to determine if any of them looked especially urgent.

“This morning, we had a sudden surge of traffic. It crashed our servers.”